Introduction


  • About me

    • Geography: 🇷🇺 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇺🇸 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇩🇪 \(\Rightarrow\) 🇺🇸
    • Disciplines: Math in School \(\Rightarrow\) Econ (Under)Grad \(\Rightarrow\) PhD in Political Science \(\Rightarrow\) Post-Doc w/ focus on Methods \(\Rightarrow\) Asisstant Prof at Vandy

  • Puzzled by why so many people consume openly propaganda media

  • Studying whether (informational) propaganda is persuasive in Russia and some other countries (?)

    • How do citizens process information (media, internet, political speeches)?
    • What do citizens in autocracies get out of state media?
    • Can we change perceptions of media bias and what are the downstream effects?

Plan for today





  1. Propaganda yesterday and today (discuss Guriev and Treisman)
  1. Effects of propaganda (tour of evidence)

What is propaganda?

  • Gained negative connotation in early 20th century, but became less popular in social sciences 90s… Still very popular in journalism

  • Many definitions… and too many arguments about them

    • Wiki: Communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda
    • Alternative (preferred): Any government’s attempt at controlling information available to citizens to achieve their goals (e.g. survival in power)
    • Institutions and intensity are important!
  • Is censorship part of propaganda?

Types of propaganda

  • Hard vs Soft Propaganda

    • Verbatim ideological messages vs. Indirect persuasion
    • News broadcasts and Political Speeches vs. Entertainment
    • Example: CCTV vs Blockbuster movies in China

  • Framing/Priming vs. Censorship

    • Control over how and what to talk about vs. Suppression of free speech
    • Example: “If we won’t attack them, they will attack us” vs. Banning of independent media in Russia
    • Censorship also includes “flooding” or creating noise (e.g. controlled media reporting contradicting information; raising doubts about any information)

Propaganda yesterday and today

Dictators of fear \(\Rightarrow\) Informational autocrats

  • Guriev and Treisman. 2019. “Informational Autocrats” \(\Rightarrow\) 2022. “Spin Dictators”

  • Summary:

    • The model of dictatorship that dominated in the twentieth century was based on fear and ideology
    • In recent years, a less bloody and ideological form of authoritarianism has been spreading
    • Shift from ideological (hard) propaganda to more informational propaganda
    • Propaganda is still used to both persuade citizens and to signal to elites
    • Answer strategy: Provide observational and anecdotal evidence over time

Evidence: Decrease in violence


  • Are there any possible issues with this evidence?

(Anecdotal) Evidence: Violence concealed




  • Examples of old dictators calls for open violence: Muammar Gadaffi of Lybia, Francisco Franco of Spain, Mao Zedong of China, Benito Mussolini of Italy…

  • …But not so much (public) violence today

  • How do autocrats conceal violence?

Evidence: End of ideology

  • Does this evidence suggest less clear ideology today?

Evidence: Mimicking democracy

Evidence: Changing rhetoric to performance


  • More focus on public policy and performance in leader speeches

Elites vs masses



  • Theory of shift to spin dictators: Informed elites are harder to persuade and more likely to resist repression \(\Rightarrow\) Autocrats try to mimic democracy and become more persuasuve to masses \(\Rightarrow\) Informational autocrats
  • Key factors: Size of elites and ability to control media

  • Evidence: More educated are more aware of press freedom and more critical of government

    • Very weak test…

Discussion



  • Do you find the informational autocracy theory persuasive or useful?

    • Media control might be less useful in suppressing collective action
    • Mimicking democracy can lead to creation of checks and balances

  • Is ideology really gone? Is “illiberal democracy” or “sovereign democracy” not ideology?

  • How sustainable is informational autocracy? Is it a transitory state?

Effects of propaganda

Is propaganda effective?


  • We discussed shift in propaganda strategies used by autocrats over time… but do they actually work?

  • Theories: Propaganda persuades masses Mattingly and Yao (2022) / sends signal to the elites Huang (2015) / jamms independent media signals Roberts (2018)

  • Expectation: Propaganda changes the audiences’ beliefs and attitudes in the expected direction (i.e. favoring the regime)

    • Should be particularly strong if the information environment is controlled by the state
    • Could dissepate over time and can be blocked by real life experiences

  • Answer strategy: Mix of field and quasi (?) experiments

Evidence

  • 1930s: Radio Propagation in Weimar Germany and its Effects on Voting for Nazi Party Adena et al. (2015)

  • 1936-42: Father Coughlin’s Effects on FDR Votes and Sales of US War Bonds Wang (2021)

  • 1943-45: Italians’ Exposure to BBC Radio and Resistance to Nazi Occupation during WWII Gagliarducci et al. (2020)

  • 1994: Exposure to Hutu Nationalist Radio and Participation in Rwandan Genocide Yanagizawa-Drott (2014)

  • 1999: Exposure to Independent TV and Voting in Russia in 1999 Enikolopov, Petrova, and Zhuravskaya (2011)

  • 2012: Random Radio Distribution and Exposure to Radio during the Mali Coup Bleck and Michelitch (2017)

  • 2014: Exposure to Russian TV and Ukrainian Elections in 2014 Peisakhin and Rozenas (2018)

  • 2018: Expansion of Transmission of Independent Radio Station in Tanzania Green et al. (2023)

Precincts within radius of Nazi controlled radio broadcasts were more likely to vote for Hitler, join the Nazi Party and engage in anti-Jewish deportations prior to 1942. But the effects were moderated by past anti-Semitic attitudes.

Leveraging variation in topography (but controlling for distance) identifies negative (-2.4 p.p.) effects on FDR votes which survived even after broadcast going away from public

Using sunspot activity to approximate variation in BBC radio reception finds important role of radio in motivating resistance but no long-lasting anti-Nazi effects

Topographic variation in exposure to RTLM responsible for roughly 10% of killings, especially from violence requiring coordination

Areas with independent NTV Channel had 8.9 p.p. less votes for government party, 6.3 p.p. more votes for opposition and lower turnout

Radio exposure boosted national identity but did not elevate explicit support for the junta

Areas with higher cross-border exposure to Russian state media had higher support for pro-Russian parties, but no effect on turnout

Effects on political interest and knowledge about domestic politics but sporadic changes in attitudes on a range of gender issues (covered by radio)

Conclusion and current work

  • So is propaganda effective?

    • Usually yes, but it (a) needs high doses in contolled media environments, and (b) can produce backlash
    • With advancement of social media control becomes more challenging and propaganda might have limited population effects
    • Sad truth: We still don’t know the exact mechanism

  • Most cutting edge research:

    • Survey experiments (too many to cover here) with curated content finds there are effects

      • Highly heterogeneous across groups (regime supporters vs. opposers, educated vs. less educated, socio-demographic groups)
      • Do not affect core political beliefs (e.g. voting intentions), but often affect immediate attitudes
      • Quickly dissipates over time

    • Studies of social media censorship and the effects of social media / LLMs

    • Studies of how to combat propaganda and misinformation

References

Adena, Maja, Ruben Enikolopov, Maria Petrova, Veronica Santarosa, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2015. “Radio and the Rise of the Nazis in Prewar Germany.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 130 (4): 1885–1939.
Bleck, Jaimie, and Kristin Michelitch. 2017. “Capturing the Airwaves, Capturing the Nation? A Field Experiment on State-Run Media Effects in the Wake of a Coup.” The Journal of Politics 79 (3): 873–89. https://doi.org/10.1086/690616.
Enikolopov, Ruben, Maria Petrova, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. 2011. “Media and Political Persuasion: Evidence from Russia.” American Economic Review 101 (7): 32533285. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.7.3253.
Gagliarducci, Stefano, Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato, Francesco Sobbrio, and Guido Tabellini. 2020. “War of the Waves: Radio and Resistance During World War II.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 12 (4): 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20190410.
Green, Donald P., Dylan W. Groves, Constantine Manda, Beatrice Montano, and Bardia Rahmani. 2023. “The Effects of Independent Local Radio on Tanzanian Public Opinion: Evidence from a Planned Natural Experiment.” The Journal of Politics, October, 000–000. https://doi.org/10.1086/726964.
Huang, Haifeng. 2015. “Propaganda as Signaling.” Comparative Politics 47 (4): 419–37.
Mattingly, Daniel C., and Elaine Yao. 2022. “How Soft Propaganda Persuades.” Comparative Political Studies 55 (9): 1569–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211047403.
Peisakhin, Leonid, and Arturas Rozenas. 2018. “Electoral Effects of Biased Media: Russian Television in Ukraine.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (3): 535550.
Roberts, Margaret. 2018. Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall. Princeton University Press.
Wang, Tianyi. 2021. “Media, Pulpit, and Populist Persuasion: Evidence from Father Coughlin.” American Economic Review 111 (9): 30643092. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20200513.
Yanagizawa-Drott, D. 2014. “Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/129/4/1947/1853091.